


kindness is the language

by storypaint (possibilityleft)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Blind Character, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-30
Updated: 2011-10-30
Packaged: 2017-10-25 02:32:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilityleft/pseuds/storypaint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toph meets a blind person who can't Earthbend.  Written for the People with Disabilities (PWD) Being Awesome Commentfic Fest.  <em>Her name was Wing-Yun, and Toph wanted to dislike her.  She didn't need someone to help her figure out how to do things that a blind person had trouble with. </em></p>
            </blockquote>





	kindness is the language

Her name was Wing-Yun, and Toph wanted to dislike her. She didn't need someone to help her figure out how to do things that a blind person had trouble with. Toph didn't care about her hair or or dress, and if her family did, then they could help her with it, or ask the servants to. (That was much more common; Lai wrestled Toph into looking nice most days.)

And if she was honest, Toph wasn't quite sure why her parents had bothered. She knew that she was their hidden doll. She wasn't going to be leaving the estate by her own means anytime soon. She'd stay here until they found someone who was desperate enough to marry her name that they would overlook her eyesight. She'd overheard them talking to the servants. They all believed that she was blind from an accident at a young age, so that the problem wasn't in her genes. Toph wasn't stupid. She knew why they told people that.

Maybe they didn't expect her future husband to give her attendants, or maybe they just wanted to give her something to do that was more elegant than practicing her basic Earthbending forms in the yard. In any case, when Toph was ten, she met Wing-Yun, who was a short, petite woman who became blind at the age of seventeen, a side-effect of a terrible fever she'd hardly survived.

She told the story in a calm, clear voice, hands folded demurely in front of her. Toph was listening from the other room. She was bored already, and she hadn't even met the woman yet. And she was also surprised that her parents were admitting to an outsider that they had a daughter, much less one with such grievous flaws.

Their words, not hers. Toph disliked being blind for the opportunities it took from her: she wanted to be able to leave the compound during the day, and she wanted to be able to practice the fun kind of earthbending in public without people worrying she'd break. But she had the Blind Bandit gig, and she sneaked off often enough to know a little bit about the world. She had come to peace with her blindness, and wished that her parents could do the same thing.

But no, they insisted that she couldn't do stuff for herself, and that was why Wing-Yun was here. She was ushered in to meet the woman, and after a few stiff introductions, her parents left. Toph shifted her foot on the floor and watched her father's body language as he conversed with the guards right outside this room. She knew they'd be keeping a close eye on them.

"It is nice to meet you, Miss Bei Fong," Wing-Yun said. She stood with her knees together, in a stance that Toph could break in a moment. "Could I see you, please?"

She reached out with both hands, and Toph almost stepped back in confusion, but then she remembered the way that her own mother was always pressing Toph's hands to her face, ever since she'd been little. "You should know your mother," Poppy usually said.

Toph didn't have much sensitivity for vibrations in her hands. Her feet were better than that. But she stood mutely and let Wing-Yun's fingers flutter over her face.

"You are very pretty," Wing-Yun said finally.

Toph shrugged. "You don't know what I look like. I don't know what I look like," she said brusquely.

Wing-Yun laughed. "Now that I've touched you, I have an idea. I will show you how to read people's faces with your hands. It can be a valuable skill."

Toph almost mentioned her Earthbending, but then she hesitated. For one, it didn't really give her faces, and for two, she wasn't ready to tell anyone about that, much less someone who'd been hired by her parents and who would definitely report back to them. If they knew... things would change. She didn't want them to know.

"So is this what you do for a living? Travel around and teach blind people how to poke strangers?" she asked instead. Wing-Yun laughed. She was an older woman, and Toph could sense a weakness in her ankles. Wing-Yun reached around behind her until she found the chair, and then she sat down in it.

"No," she said. "I raised a family, and I have grandchildren, but my husband is gone, and so I find myself with extra time on my hands. Your parents asked me for a favor, and promised to pay me well for not telling about your condition."

Toph scowled at the floor, and because her parents weren't there, flopped down on it in the most unladylike manner possible, adjusting her skirt so that she could keep her feet on the ground.

"They tell me that you're restless. That you don't feel useful because you can't help your family like a normal girl would."

Toph almost snorted, and fought back the impulse just in time.

"I want to tell you," the woman continued in her calm voice, "that you are not useless at all. I live by myself. My sons visit when they can, but I go to the market on my own. I cook and shop and clean by myself. You can be self-sufficient. You can have a happy life, in fact."

Toph wrapped her arms around her knees and didn't reply right away.

"You're not an Earthbender?" she asked, knowing the answer.

Wing-Yun shook her head, and said, "No. I am not a bender, but I don't consider that a loss either."

Toph still wanted to dislike her, but now she was a little bit impressed. Not that she'd admit it. To do all of those things without being worried about a misstep? And to do it having been able to see before -- Toph couldn't imagine how strange it must have been for Wing-Yun to wake after her fever broke and to see nothing where there had been a lot before.

"I can do it," Toph said quietly. "The stuff you mentioned. I want to do it."

Wing-Yun chuckled a little. "Anything is better than staying indoors all the time, isn't it? Maybe when we're done here, they'll give you some more privileges. Wouldn't that be nice?"

Toph bit her lip. She didn't think that was likely at all. "Yeah," she said, voice husky.

"All right," Wing-Yun said cheerfully. "I think the first thing to show you is how to read faces. You can do mine, and then we can practice on your guards, how's that? It might not be exactly the same for you because I'm not sure how you picture things in your head, but wouldn't it be nice to know how differently people look?"

She took Toph's rough hands in her soft ones, and pressed Toph's fingertips to her cheeks, and so they began.


End file.
